


Journey to the Past

by Newt



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen, So much angst, someone hug all of these children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5355239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newt/pseuds/Newt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Your parents are dead, tiny one…” <br/>The story of thirteen kids as they try to escape their world, in order to save their futures. Follows the fe:a second gen up until their journey back in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

He lost himself once he got the hang of his new dance, and then realized he would never know its ending. Heavy-hearted, smile aching in his cheeks, he improvised.

She lost herself on the day she realized her mother would never return for her. She discarded an arrowhead, incomplete, on the mantel of her childhood home.

He lost himself every time he saw the pain lurking in his friends’ eyes. Surely his heroic phrases should cheer them up, and yet still he felt so powerless!

She lost herself once the last of the curses wore off. She was surprised to find herself feeling no strong difference, except for an emptiness where there had once been some sort of protection against the evils that now pursued her in full.

He lost himself as he lost the structure in his life. With no more schedules, no more rules imposed on him, his heart and his music took on a dreary, empty feeling.

She lost herself when she lost the sound of one practice blade striking another. Though trees, hay bales, and friends all felt her frustrations, she herself refused to ever acknowledge it.

He lost himself when a promise was broken. Saddling up his wyvern, he swore to never trust again.

She lost herself when she was dropped off like a parcel at her new house. She spent her days wondering why, as their words of punishment and hatred blurred together in her mind.

He lost himself before he could even walk or talk. With the weight of a race’s survival on his shoulders, he ran. 

She lost herself, but she would never admit it. Scowling, crying, she cut viciously through foes with her sword.

He lost himself to the reaction of chemicals, the spark of discovery, and the late nights spent researching the mundane. He didn’t know what he was looking for, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever find it.

He lost himself without ever fully knowing his mother. With nothing to remember her by, except a vague warmth and a tactician notebook, he took up her place in the kingdom.

She lost herself in many ways, over many years. With her father, with her mother, with her people, with her powerlessness, she looked towards a spark of hope.

And she found it.


	2. Lucina*Owain*Cythia*Lucina

Lucina couldn’t believe how numb she’d become to it all.

“Owain?”

She carefully put a hand on her cousin’s back. He remained in his squatting position, not responding at all to her touch.

“It’s getting dark, Owain.”

He grunted.

Realizing it was a lost cause, she crouched down next to him. He was still looking determinedly at the ground, and it was impossible to glimpse his facial expression from this angle. Not that it was hard to imagine. 

Turning away from him, her eyes rested on the gravestone, now mere inches from her face.

Her guardian. Her comfort. Her joy in a dying world. Her Aunt Lissa was dead, and with that Owain had become the last of their group to lose both of his parents. There was no one left to shield them, or treat them like children. There was no one left to even steadily remember a life before Grima.

Three mornings ago, a small team of healers had been commissioned to help with recovery from a risen attack on the edge of town. As the last healer left in all of house Ylisse, Lissa was among those selected. Though she knew the risks, her first duty was to her people, and she had left the castle with a sense of purpose and duty.

Unfortunately, the risen had not finished with that particular section of Ylisstol.

All that was returned to Owain, from a tearful merchant whose daughter had been healed by his mother, was a few words of gratitude and Lissa’s ring. 

So why did Lucina feel so calm? Aside from the familiar burning behind her eyes, she was completely at peace. Well, maybe not peace, exactly. But the same as she felt on most every other day.

She sat down on the firm ground, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. Breeze playing across her face, she allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment.

Maybe it was the weather. The sky had been a beautiful blue today, and now it was fading into the most breathtaking of sunsets. Puddles of orange light danced in time to the swaying of the trees. This really was a nice place, for a graveyard. They could have done worse, considering the kind of places that passed for graveyards nowadays.

Maybe it was her new role. With Lissa gone, Lucina had officially and hastily been crowned exalt. She wasn’t allowed to be unstable anymore. She was the voice of all of the people of Ylisse. However many of them were left.

Maybe she was still in shock. Laurent had been giving her that look all day. Like she was just about to explode. Every time a tragedy occurred, he looked at her that same way. And once she’d cried, or broke something, somehow got it out of her system, he’d seem satisfied again. He’d been dabbling too much in a branch of science based on the human mind. It was giving him weird ideas.

She let her eyes fall open again, unfocused and staring. Without reading the words, she untucked a hand and brushed it across the surface of the gravestone.

“It’s not fair,” she said simply, pulling her hand back again. Owain didn’t move.

“Death is rarely fair, cousin,” he mumbled, tilting his face a tiny bit towards her. “That’s why we must learn to overcome it. To fight the foe that… that…”

His voice started trembling, and he stopped himself abruptly. His talk definitely wasn’t up to its usual grandeur.

She felt a steeling in her stomach. Adjusting herself into a well-postured sitting position, she turned to face him as head-on as possible.

“We will fight.”

Slowly, carefully, he brought his head up to face her in full. His eyes were puffy and red, but his expression was resilient through its tiredness.

“Right. We have to.”

It was no shock, to see his face like this. It was the same expression they’d all worn, at some point or another. The broken, crumpled, hopeless expression of a child left alone in the world. And yet, it gave her heart the same plummeting feeling as it always did.

“I’ll… I’ll give you more time. Just make sure you’re back in the castle by dark.”

He nodded, turning away from her again to face the gravestone. 

Lucina jumped to her feet with the elegance of a practiced fighter. Giving her cousin one last, hopefully comforting, pat on the shoulder, she turned to face her home. 

The castle stood silhouetted against the setting sun. This graveyard had once been a part of it, reserved for members of the Ylissean royalty. But since the rise of Grima, the need for grave space had grown too much. The land had become public property, and the castle a place for refugees to flee to, should they manage to make it this far.

Not to mention, it was best to separate the dead from the living as much as possible these days. They had a penchant for reappearing in the worst possible ways.

She dusted off her pants, and set off through the heavyset graveyard gates towards the castle’s main gates. No use entering through the hole in the wall and scaring everyone. Better to face the front guards than Cynthia’s eager lance.

About halfway across the courtyard, she felt something in herself break. She paused, swaying slightly in her boots. She allowed a single tear to escape, then wiped it away. Her hands were shaking, so she shoved them in her pockets.

Collecting herself in full, she set off towards the doors once more.

**********

“Welcome back, Master Owain. It certainly is late.”

One of the volunteer guards, a middle-aged man with an impressive mustache, had greeted Owain without even turning to fully look at him. Curses, had his footfalls grown that predictable?

“Thank you, kind sir.”

His voice still sounded weird to himself. Distant and hollow. Like a hero-turned-villain at the sight of a great disaster. Maybe he would become a villain after this. Maybe he would pretend to be a villain, and then defeat the enemies at the last second.

Maybe he would go to bed for now.

Taking care to walk differently, unpredictably, he made his way through the courtyard, into the castle, and up the grand staircase toward the living quarters. Just as he crested the last step, something stopped him.

If he was to make his way to his own room, he’d have to pass his mother’s. It was incredibly simple. Just a short walk around a few corners, and down the hallway. And yet, some villainous force prevented him from doing it.

His sword hand, which had been oddly quiet all day, twitched slightly.

“Not now, sword hand,” he whispered. “I’m trying to get to my room.”

He struggled to draw his sword hand into a fist, then clamped it at his side. He suddenly felt unsteady. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the ground, slumped against a wall. Curse the demons inside of him.

At this point, every part of him just wanted to give up. It was like something had drained all the fight from his once-energetic body.

What would his mother say about this? She was always telling him to train hard, and stay in good shape, and be prepared to run away if it came to that. 

Pah, running away. She was a hero, but she never seemed to understand the hero’s way.

He wondered if running away could have saved her.

He quickly diverted all thoughts away from his mother. This was not grief. This was the demons fighting for control inside of him. He could make this a thrilling part of his story if he could just… stay… focused…

He clutched his sword hand in his good hand, bringing it up boldly to his face. 

“We must have hope,” he whispered forcefully. “Yes, that’s it. Hope!”

He sat up straighter, concentrating on the turmoil inside of him.

“Behold, my powers have been doubled! I feel the energy of two lives flowing through my veins! It’s as if I’ve absorbed the abilities of…”

He broke into a sudden sob. Blast and damnation.

Maybe he’d just sleep out here, right in the hallway. Yes, a good amount of hardship and uncomfortable conditions was bound to train his hero’s spirit.

With resolve, he bunched up his jacket under his head. Yes, exactly as planned. 

This would surely calm the demons warring in his chest.

**********

Cynthia was half-asleep, heading back to bed from her guard shift, when she brushed something pretty big with her foot.

Senses bursting into hyperdrive, she let out a screech. She needed a weapon, but she’d already stowed her lance away when she came off watch. Her mother’s lance was in her room, but it was still a fair distance away. All she had was this glass of water she’d just got. What if she smashed it against the wall? Then maybe the pieces would be sharp enough to…

“Urgh… Cynthia?” 

The bad news was that the mysterious hallway-beast was definitely alive. And talking. The good news was that risen didn’t usually sleep in hallways. And they definitely didn’t talk. 

Or know her name. 

Wait, she knew that voice!

“Owain!”

She could only see his vague shape in the darkness, but she was sure of it now. Owain was asleep here, in the hallway. For some reason.

“You weren’t able to make it all the way to your bed? Were you attacked? Was it your sword hand again?”

She crouched down to get a closer look at his face. She carefully gripped her water in one hand and steadied herself with the other.

“Thf… the demons! The demons have wrested control back from my tortured mind. This is the only way for me to best them.”

His words were thick with sleep. It was kind of impressive how he’d managed to wake up with his full demon story ready to go.

“Wow, that sounds tough! I still think you should probably sleep in your bed though. You’ll get a stiff back or something.”

Owain had slowly brought himself up to sitting. She couldn’t quite see his expression in the darkness, but his voice sounded weary as he spoke.

“Ah… yes, I suppose so. But that is a sacrifice I must make! What if something sneaks in during the night? You, and all of our companions, will surely be glad that Owain was there to stop them.”

She didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Weird. She wasn’t getting out of touch with her inner hero, was she?

“You can’t stop them all by yourself. We’re all a team, here,” she said. 

There was a long silence. It was pretty uncomfortable. Cynthia had just opened her mouth to make a mood-lightening joke, when Owain interrupted her thoughts. 

“I don’t want anyone else to die.”

His voice was so quiet she barely even heard it. She took a sharp breath, then drew her mouth into a line. How was she even supposed to respond to that?

“We won’t die,” she said, words ringing hollow through the empty hallway. Even she had trouble believing that nowadays. Owain tilted his head towards her.

“The hero doesn’t always win,” he said softly. 

She knew he was thinking of Lissa. She had definitely been a hero, to all of them. She was the last of the shepherds, and the last of their parents to stay and protect them. And now, they were alone. But no! She couldn’t let him be discouraged like that!

“The heroes will win! I know we will this time! Severa and Kjelle and Noire… they’ll be back any minute now. And then we’ll know for sure…”

She stopped talking immediately. This was definitely a bad time to remind him of those three. They had gone out looking for sable, one of the legendary gemstones of the fire emblem, two weeks ago. It was just a hunch of Laurent’s, but he believed that if they managed to find the gemstones, there might be a way to defeat Grima. It was a very loose hope, but it was all they had.

That is, if those three would just get back already. How long did it take to find a legendary treasure? There must be lots of hints as to its location. 

She brought her thoughts away from them. They were strong. They could handle themselves. What she needed to deal with now was this guy.

“Come on Owain. Are you just going to sit idly in the hallway all night?”

There was another long silence. She was just beginning to think that he’d maybe fallen back asleep when he spoke once more.

“A hero is never idle.”

She giggled at that, unable to help herself. Owain used to say that ALL the time. On a good day, there was general eye-rolling. And on a bad day, Severa would just get up and leave.

“Yup! That’s right! Now I’m going to go to bed so I’m ready for duty in the morning. You should do the same, okay?”

She stood up and offered him a hand. He took it, and she yanked him to his feet with crazy force. Wake up his joints a little.

“Thanks Cynthia. You’re a great warrior of justice,” he said, following her down the hall.

She just smiled to herself.

*********

Lucina didn’t dream. 

It seemed unfair, somehow, that she should have no pretense of relief from her strenuous daily life. Often Morgan would recount a dream of their parents, or a dream of flying, or a dream of peace, and he’d spend the whole morning in unreasonably good spirits. She was almost jealous of him.

She’d used to dream, when she was a bit younger. She’d fall asleep with tears stinging her eyes, and then dream of a peaceful world, and wake up with the melancholy feeling that accompanied the fleeting nature of her fantasies. 

As she grew older, she gained responsibilities. The last exalt, her Aunt Emmeryn, had taken the throne at age nine, and shouldered the responsibility with an incredible grace that Lucina found impossible to live up to. 

Lucina would fall asleep every night with anxiety twisting in her stomach, only to be greeted by feverish nightmares in her dreams. She couldn’t count the number of times her subconscious had allowed her to watch her friends die; on many nights, in many ways. She could recall little of these dreams, now, except for a lingering feeling of powerlessness.

Then, one night, she stopped dreaming altogether. Or at least, she couldn’t remember her dreams. Her nights became a black stretch of undefined time, and she mostly woke up feeling more tired than she had been.

This dreamlessness, however, came with the added perk of being incredibly easy to be awoken. Every time a floorboard creaked, or there was an animal outside, or a large gust of wind shook her windowpane, she would wake with a start.

That’s how, on this night, she found herself in the main hallway, feet spread slightly apart, hand resting readily on falchion’s hilt. She had heard some guards outside, whispering about a group of travelers sighted nearby. Refugees were taken in the morning, and would usually wait out the night in Ylisstol before approaching the castle. It was probably nothing, but she could never be too safe.

It could be bandits, or brigands, or, dare she wish it…

She leaped into action, dashing out across the courtyard with carefully placed strides. She nodded to the guards standing by the entryway.

“Exalt Lucina. You shouldn’t be out this late,” said one.

The words cut her like a sword. She was still completely unused to being called exalt. 

“I heard news of travellers,” she replied simply.

“Ah, yes, our scouts picked them out several minutes ago. Three of them. No apparent threat. I wouldn't worry…”

She didn’t need to hear any more. Completely abandoning her stance, relief flooding through her veins, she took off down the hill. 

The guards shouted after her, but she ignored them. She ran until she spotted their figures in the darkness, then practically collided with them in her excitement. 

“Welcome b…” she began, but stopped once she took in the full picture.

Severa stood shakily upright, crippled by the weight of Kjelle and Noire. The two were unresponsive, completely battered and slumped over. 

Lucina gasped, adrenaline coursing through her.

“Yeah, I know,” huffed Severa, gritting her teeth. “A little help?”

Stomach twisting, Lucina shouldered Kjelle, taking her weight off of Severa. She dodged the ragged pieces of Kjelle’s armour, still attached to her in places, and brought her to rest in a position supported by Lucina’s left side. Kjelle flopped onto her, face crinkling a bit in apparent pain.

“What happened to you?” asked Lucina. She felt something warm and sticky on her arm. Kjelle was bleeding.

“Attacked by risen on the way up here,” said Severa, shifting Noire’s weight. “The dastards had to wait until we were in the home stretch. Just as we were letting our guards down. They got Noire first, then Kjelle as we were fighting them off. She was protecting me. Like I need protecting… anyway, there were only four of them. We’re all alive, at least.”

But how long would that last? Kjelle was losing blood fast, and Noire appeared impossibly pale, even in the faint moonlight.

Lucina shouted for help, and, with a guard's aid, they slowly, too slowly, brought Kjelle and Noire the rest of the way up the hill, and into the castle.

“Bring them into the room on the left,” said Lucina. It was the closest room to them, mostly used for storage. There were a few benches there, which was better than a stone floor at least. 

She took deliberate steps to the room, trying hard not to bump Kjelle around too much. Kjelle shuffled her feet a little. She always had to do her share of the work. Lucina allowed it, since it meant she was still conscious.

She heard Severa breathing fast behind her. No doubt she was trying to mask some horrible guilt. 

They managed to get them through the door and onto the couches. Lucina dismissed the guard, nerves making her muscles ache.

Lucina hastened to open the curtains, bathing the room in a soft moonlight. She stood there for a while, taking in the pained faces of the girls on the benches, then moving up to Severa. 

Severa’s face was smudged with dirt and grime, but otherwise appeared to be unscathed. She had her eyes closed and her teeth gritted, taking shallow breaths to hold back some kind of weaker emotion. 

“It’s gone, Lucina. Sable is broken. All of this…” she gestured to Noire and Kjelle. “Was for nothing.”

Lucina took a deep breath. So that was it, then. Their one hope. She tore her mind away from that and back to the more pressing situation.

“We need to help them. Go wake the others. Someone boil some water, someone get the bandages. Blankets, too, something to make them comfortable. Some candles would be nice, so we could see what we’re doing. I’ll stay here and monitor their breathing…”

“What are you talking about?” Severa growled. “They need more help than that. Get Lissa down here.”

Lucina felt a stab of pain. Right. She’d forgotten that Severa didn’t know about Lissa’s death yet. Her eyes started to sting again.

“Aunt Lissa is… she’s…” Lucina tried to choke the words out, but found they got stuck in her throat.

Severa’s eyes widened.

“What? No! Gods, no!”

Lucina nodded shakily. 

Severa gritted her teeth, unleashing her fury in a powerful kick of the wall. She paused for a moment, clenching her hands into fists. She drew in a ragged breath, turning back to face Lucina.

“I’ll go wake everyone up. Keep a good watch on Noire, she’s been blacking out.”

Lucina nodded at Severa’s retreating back. She went to kneel beside Noire, assessing her injuries. The right side of her archer’s uniform was torn open, revealing a deep gash. Lucina held her breath, taking Noire’s limp wrist into her hands to feel for a pulse. 

It was there. Faint, but there.

She turned to see Kjelle, whose face had contorted into a look of intense pain. Lucina suspected this had less to do with her injuries, and more to do with her listening in on their conversation about Aunt Lissa’s death. Kjelle had her hands curled into shaking fists, so at least she was conscious.

All this for a broken gemstone. It had been their last hope. A fleeting legend whispered about Naga and the fire emblem. But legends, like anything else that they tried to hold on to in this dying world, were as easily thwarted as dust in the wind.

Kneeling in that dark room, listening for the sounds of her friends’ breathing, Lucina allowed a few tears to slip through her defenses. And then the dam broke, and she was openly weeping into the silence, trying to stop herself and coming up with nothing but some pathetic choking sounds.

She was a child again, powerless and trapped in a nightmare. But this time, there was no one at all to comfort her, or tell her everything would be all right.

In the darkness of her fallen empire, she succumbed to her fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally got up the courage to post this thing! I actually spent the whole day trying to pre-order fates, and then alas, nothing, so now, with nothing left to lose, I'm turning back to awakening. Awakening still loves me. Anyway, boring personal stories aside, this is what this fic's going to be like from now on. Rotating POVs, and all. Anyway, new chapter sooon


	3. Kjelle*Severa*Lucina*Laurent

In her hazy fever dreams, a memory appeared.

She was still small, four or five… no. Four for sure, because this was before Grima. She remembered being energized, having been out training in the sun all day. 

She hadn’t been alone. Her mother was with her the whole time, laughing as she waved around sticks and jumped over fences and terrorized imaginary villains.

“Mommy you have to stand closer to me,” she huffed, pointing to the ground by her right side.

Her mom laughed at that. A barking, unselfconscious laugh that rained down on Kjelle from her mother’s towering figure.

“What exactly is my role here, anyway? Am I your sidekick or something?”

“No!” Kjelle could hardly believe this. It was so obvious. “You’re my horse!”

Another laugh. Kjelle laughed too, quieter but just as purposefully.

“I’m your horse? You’re scared of horses!”

Teeth bared, Kjelle pointed an aggressive finger at her mother.

“I am NOT scared!”

“You’re not?” her mother crouched down so she could see into her eyes. She smiled widely, arms folded across her knees. “Well then how about THIS?”

With no warning, her mother snatched Kjelle up and sat her daughter on her shoulders. She jumped back to standing, and Kjelle’s stomach twisted with delight. She was so high up! She could see everything!

“How is it up there?” asked her mother, squeezing Kjelle’s shins.

“Tall,” Kjelle replied plainly. “Run around!”

With another laugh, her mother took off, running across the length of the field and back towards their house. 

With every step, Kjelle’s body was jarred out of position. The thumping motion was making her a little sick. But the wind on her face, and the speed of her movement, erased every fear she had.

She let out a shriek of delight, pressing her palms against her mother’s forehead.

“Go faster!”

And her mother went faster, throwing in some random turns and spins just for fun.

When they finally reached their house, her mother lifted her effortlessly and placed her back on the ground. She was a little out of breath, but still smiling down at Kjelle. 

Kjelle fought the urge to smile back. She still hadn’t forgotten her point.

“I am NOT scared of horses,” she said again. “I want to learn to ride!”

Her mother crouched down, and finally Kjelle saw her full face. She was grinning widely, wrinkles creasing the corners of her eyes. She put a hand on Kjelle’s shoulder.

“Horses are really big, you know. And you’re still just little. I don’t want you doing anything that you’re not one hundred percent okay with. We’ll practice like this for now.”

Kjelle scowled.

“But I AM one hundred… okay…”

“Hey, no whining!”

Her mother stood up again, taking her hand. Kjelle huffed, stomping her foot for emphasis.

“It’ll happen eventually, kiddo. For now, let’s go see what your dad’s cooked us up for dinner.”

And then, with every step she took towards her house, her memory faded to black. The harder she fought to catch up to it, the more it left her, until, eventually, there was no more solace in her dreams.

When Kjelle awoke in the sun-dappled room, her cheeks were wet with tears. 

“What the…”

She brought up an arm to wipe them away, and winced as sharp pain shot through her side. She brought her arm back down, taking in her surroundings.

In a rush of anxiety, all of the events leading up to this moment returned to her. She had been fighting. There were risen everywhere. Severa… and Noire. Gods, where was Noire?

She whipped her head around, spotting a figure on the bench to her right. The slight form rocked softly with several tiny, infrequent breaths.

Kjelle counted ten breaths, making sure they were still coming steadily, before trying to speak.

“Noire…?” 

No response. Just the same pained rise and fall of her chest.

Kjelle shifted a bit, rolling over to better face her friend. Pain shot through her side, and she cried out despite herself. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for it to pass.

She heard the door creak open, and then the soft sound of a voice she had never been happier to hear in her life.

“Kjelle? Oh, thank the gods you’re awake.”

Kjelle shuffled back around to face Lucina, willing herself to ignore the fresh wave of pain.

“Is Noire okay? And Severa...”

With a fresh pang of sadness, she remembered a snippet of the conversation from last night. Could Lissa really be dead? Or was that another weird dream?

“You can’t…” Kjelle gestured towards Noire with her chin. “… you can’t heal her?”

Lucina bit her bottom lip, drawing her hands self-consciously to her chest.

“Aunt Lissa is…”

Kjelle shook her head vigorously, settling her gaze back towards the ceiling. She didn’t need to hear that crap again.

“It’ll be okay, Kjelle,” said Lucina weakly. The words rang hollow. They both knew that that was very much an empty promise.

“Lucina… the gemstone.”

Squeezing her eyes shut against the threat of weakness, Kjelle recalled the sad face of the villagers they’d encountered. The empty gaze of the priest guardian as he cupped his hands around a grain of powder that had once been a part of their last hope for their world.

“Severa told me,” Lucina said. “It’s not your fault.”

Kjelle knew, on most levels, that it wasn’t her fault, or the priest’s fault, or anyone’s fault, really. But there was still some small part of her, some vicious voice in the back of her mind that taunted her.

If only you’d been stronger.

If only you’d gotten there sooner.

If only…

“I gotta go,” Kjelle grunted, forcing herself into a sitting position. Her head throbbed behind her eyes as she brought herself to face Lucina again.

“Wh… go where?” Lucina spluttered, eyes wide.

“I’m going to train some more. Blow off some steam, you know.”

Kjelle swung a leg down from the bench, clutching her side with both hands.

“No! No you’re not!” Said Lucina, rushing to her side. “It’s much too dangerous!”

“I need to… get stronger…” Kjelle was finding it unusually hard to get words out. Her vision slowly faded to black as she tried to stare defiantly into Lucina’s stern gaze.

Seconds passed. Her side ached. With a huff, she settled back to lying down.

“You can’t push yourself like this. Not when we have no healers left.”

Kjelle took a deep breath, head spinning. Not only was she dizzy from the movement, but Lucina had HAD to go and say that. Now what was she supposed to do?

Just as Kjelle was just about to throw her pride aside and apologize, she heard Lucina’s footsteps make their way back across the room and out the door. 

Wonderful.

Kjelle pressed her arm over her eyes, trying to block out the daylight filtering through the windows. If she couldn’t train, she might as well catch up on some sleep. Maybe that was what her body needed right now.

She tried hard to think happy thoughts as she drifted off. Maybe, just maybe, she could have another good dream.

*********

Oh gods. It was green. Why in NAGA’S name would it be GREEN?

Severa swirled around her bucket of well water, trying not to actually vomit all over the castle grounds.

She hadn’t seen water this disgusting in as long as she could remember. She knew that their water supply was only getting worse, but HONESTLY. Some dirt, she could take. Even a few dead insects here and there could be picked out with the right amount of complaining to the others. But GREEN? How are you supposed to explain away that?

Scowling, she hauled the water to the castle gate, stopping a few times along the way under cover of talking to the people waiting to get into the castle. In reality, she was resting her arms. She’d forgotten how heavy water could be.

She stumbled up the final crest of the hill (it just HAD to be uphill), spilling a bit of water in her boots. She nodded to the front guards, who saluted her back, and then squelched her wet feet all the way across the courtyard, and down the hall to their designated bathing chambers. There had been a time when she would have bathed in an actual tub. But even the basic luxuries of personal hygiene had been taken from them.

She knocked three times and, hearing no answer, slipped inside. The floor was mercifully dry. She supposed no one had bothered to bathe in a while, what with their dwindling water supply. A lot of the time it came down to a completely unsanitary pat-down with a cloth. Their smell was getting disgusting. Their clothes were getting disgusting. Everything was getting disgusting.

But her hair. Her hair she could fix, just for today. She had definitely earned that, after all she’d seen lately.

Severa got straight to work, slowly, meticulously working her way through her hair, cycling between wetting it, scrubbing it, and running it through with a wide-toothed comb. It was a far cry from proper hair care, but it was at least a thousand times better than what most of the girls had been doing.

After her rather therapeutic self-care session, she carefully wound her hair back into its signature high ponytails. Kjelle had once criticized them, saying that they only served as something that was more easily snagged in a fight, and suggested that she cut them to a more practical length.

Sometimes, when she was feeling really down, she’d recall that memory, just to laugh at it again. If she was going to die anyway, she was going to do it looking like herself.

She left the empty bucket in the corner, for whoever decided to use the shower next. She could dream, couldn’t she?

Taking off her wet boots, she padded bare-foot into the hustle and bustle of the foyer, ducking around the corner and up the staircase to what had been designated as royalty-and-palace-guard-only chambers. It had felt so good to sleep in her own bed again last night. Even If it was just some temporary bedding piled up in the corner of a room she shared with Noire.

Or, she normally shared it with Noire. 

As soon as Noire got better, she would share it with Noire again.

Shaking herself from those thoughts, she slipped through the door to her room, and went to open her case of meager possessions.

She deposited her comb in the “hair care” section of the case, purposefully looking elsewhere so as not to see the pegasus-knight hair feathers she had taken from her mother’s supplies before leaving home. 

Stupid. As if she cared about the Pegasus knights even a little bit. She’d just thought they were cute, maybe. Definitely cuter on her perfect mother than they’d ever be on her. She hadn’t even tried them out yet, because she just knew.

Slamming the case shut, she settled back on her pile of bedding.

She sighed loudly at the ceiling and, getting no apparent satisfaction, sighed even more loudly at the ceiling. She rolled over onto her stomach, and kicked the ground a bit. Maybe she’d go out and wave her sword around later. Just to blow off some steam. Or maybe she could convince Lucina to practice with her. Get her out of this godsforsaken castle.

The fact of the matter was, Severa hated everything. Now that the possibility of collecting the gemstones was gone, they were completely out of leads. Grima would be upon them any day now, and they had no defenses left.

She hated everything.

But she would not give in. 

With Lissa gone, they had no healers. And it didn’t take a brainiac like Laurent to realise that they were slowly losing soldiers, too. The biggest thing they were missing for the inevitable Grima attack was strength in numbers. No matter how strong Severa had gotten, or how strong Kjelle pretended to be, or how fast Cynthia could fly on her little Pegasus, there was just no way they could beat hoards and hoards of risen. Especially without a healer.

She could think of one clear solution to the healer problem.

Brady. And not just him. All of them. Gerome and Inigo and the rest of the second generation of shepherds. As little kids, they had sworn to protect Ylisse as heroes. 

Nowadays, just the word “hero” made her laugh in disgust. She saw no heroes in a world where good people, children and parents and soldiers and everyone, died just to become a meal for a giant, ugly, freaking DRAGON. But if she could rely on anyone to be a hero, she supposed she’d have to count on the thirteen of them. Together.

But where were they?

*********

“Morgan, you really shouldn’t stop in the road so much. Risen can pick up on your scent.”

Lucina’s lips curled into a smile as her brother gave her the most betrayed look she had ever seen in her life.

“But how could you have missed these flowers? They’re perfect! Nice and purple, mom’s favourite colour.”

She crossed her arms impatiently as he plucked exactly three of the purple flowers from the roadside and then, carefully examining them all, tossed two back into the woods.

“Now that’s just wasteful.”

“Sorry,” said Morgan, grinning widely in his “I’m-not-actually-sorry-at-all” expression.

He carefully added this latest flower to his growing collection, dividing it up evenly into blue in his left hand and purple in his right.

Lucina shifted her grip on the handle of the supply cart. They’d been out collecting food and provisions all morning, and they were getting harder and harder to find. Morgan could sweet talk his way to just about anything, and that was why she took him along. People found it hard to say no to the cheerful little prince. It was a dirty tactic, but it kept her refugees fed. 

At the moment there were enough supplies available to keep Ylisstol happy and healthy. It just required spreading the wealth a little, in figures that Laurent carefully ran through after every trip.

In return for Morgan’s cheerful cajoling of the masses, Lucina agreed that he wouldn’t have to pull a supply cart. They brought four guards along, and everyone carried their keep except for Morgan. Much to her exasperation, this left Morgan’s hands open to picking up every single flower they saw along the walk back.

“We’re only a few minutes away now. I’d beg you not to stop again,” said Lucina, but her heart wasn’t in it. It was impossible to stay mad at Morgan.

Especially when he was doing something as well-meaning as collecting flowers for their parents’ graves.

“Fine, fine,” he said, rushing to catch up to her. 

They walked the rest of the way in silence, only the crunch of the leaves beneath their boots and the creak of old wheels as any indication of life. The guards kept shifting, trying to see all around them and keep them safe. It made her even more nervous, somehow.

“Are you okay, Luci?” asked Morgan. Concern crinkled his brow as he examined her face. She forced herself to smile.

“Of course. Just thinking, is all.”

Satisfied, Morgan faced forward again, swinging his arms a little.

“Oh, I can see it now,” he said, pointing a little further uphill. 

Castle Ylisse looked down at them, as impressive and daunting as ever. Lucina had never thought of her childhood home as a scary place. It had always been welcoming, a safe space. But now that the whole palace belonged to her, the sight of it made her stomach churn. 

“It’s left down this path,” said Morgan, immediately shifting his trajectory. 

Lucina nodded, following behind him. She dismissed the guards, who reluctantly headed back up the hill.

“Stay safe, exalt Lucina,” said the last of them, stony faced and sullen.

She forced a smile in response, gesturing to falchion’s hilt. They parted ways, and the siblings made for the graveyard.

Lucina parked her supply cart behind a cover of bushes. Usually people were too nervous to come up here, but she could never be too careful about hiding supplies from desperate citizens.

“Do you think Aunt Lissa likes blue, too?” asked Morgan, head bowed down towards his handful of flowers. His voice was weak, but she pretended not to notice.

“I’m sure she does,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Now let’s go in.”

Morgan nodded, clenching his hands around the flowers until his knuckles went white. He took a few steps toward the gate, but Lucina stopped him.

“Morgan, stay back,” she said, drawing falchion as she approached the gates. Her brother nodded and took a few steps behind her.

After all that Lucina had seen, she was no longer afraid of small packs of risen. But every time they made this journey, anxiety built in her chest. The thought of opening the gate to the rotting, malicious body of her father was enough to keep her up at night. She nodded towards Morgan in reassurance, but his eyes were squeezed tight. She patted his shoulder and reached to unlatch the gate.

“Just… if mom and dad are there, don’t let me know. Act natural, or something.”

Morgan’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but the uncharacteristic pain in his words struck a deep chord in her heart.

“Well, it won’t be mother, anyway. Her grave is empty, remember?”

Before Morgan could respond, Lucina unlatched the gate, took on a readied retaliation stance, and kicked the door open. Nothing so far. No sounds, no hot breath, no rotting flesh reaching towards her…

Falchion first, she leapt around the corner. Still no sign of risen. She let out a deep breath through her mouth.

“It’s all clear, Morgan, you can come in.”

Lucina had falchion all sheathed before Morgan even reached her side again.

She forced herself to smile at him, ruffling his hair just like she’d been doing since he was a kid. He was growing fast now, almost as tall as she was. She vowed to ruffle his hair for as long as she could reach it.

With a spring in his step, Morgan led the way towards their parents’ graves. He carefully laid the flowers on the headstones, then stood exactly between them, hands clasped in prayer. 

Lucina supposed she could pray, too, but she just hadn’t felt like it lately. Instead, she watched her brother, pride swelling in her chest. 

He was a good kid. He was the youngest of all of them, growing up almost entirely in this world of death and destruction. But he’d always faced the day with a smile on his face, and his positivity immediately lit up whatever room he was in. 

He’d never fully known their parents, as they’d both died when he was barely walking and talking, but he still put his full faith towards them. Aunt Lissa raised him on stories of them, and Lucina did her best to spread their memories as well. 

Morgan unclasped his hands, looking back over his shoulder towards Lucina.

“Do you want to talk to them first?”

Talking to them. To a corpse and an empty gravesite. Lucina had honestly never seen the point, but the ritual kept Morgan feeling close to them, so she had always played along.

She walked up to stand beside him, shaking her head wordlessly.

“Okay, I’ll start,” he said, pausing briefly to consider.

“Okay, well… hi mom! We’ve had a pretty rough week, I think. Aunt Lissa is with you now. You’ve probably noticed. I bet you’re all having a lot of fun wherever you are, and she’s playing pranks on you just like she always said she did.”

He paused, taking a shuddering breath. He turned towards Lucina, uncertainty wracking his face. Lucina turned and rubbed his back, hoping she was comforting him somehow. He smiled at her weakly, and they both resumed their original positions.

“Me and Luci are okay. I mean, it’s still pretty rough out here, but we’re always trying hard to think of a plan that’ll help us get out of it. I’m using all of the stuff your book taught me.”

He nodded, then shifted to face their father’s grave.

“And… hi dad! Um… pretty much the same stuff I said to mom, if you were listening. I hope you’re happy to see your sister again. Well, not happy, maybe. Luci and I are fine. Okay, I love you, bye.”

He nodded, satisfied with his words for the week. He turned to face Lucina again.

“You’re not going to say anything?”

She pressed her lips together, staring at the cold pieces of stone. She had lots to say to her parents, of course. But talking to these graves wasn’t really talking to them at all. She wanted her mother to hug her and tell her everything would be alright. She wanted her father to lift her up like he used to when she was small, taking charge of the situation and making everything okay again. But there was nothing that these two slabs of stone could do for her. So instead, she had always directed her words towards appeasing Morgan. 

But today, on their first visit after Aunt Lissa’s death, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her “parents” that could possibly help Morgan feel better.

“You said it all, I think,” she said, nodding towards him. He laughed a little.

“Okay then. I mean, I was pretty good,” he paused, pointing towards a grave several rows away. “Aunt Lissa is over there now, right?”

Lucina looked towards the freshly dug grave that she had sat at with Owain a few days ago. A few days. It had felt like a lifetime.

“She is.”

Tears shone in Morgan’s eyes.

“I… I’m going to go talk to her, too…”

He held up a few blue flowers. She rubbed his back again, then squeezed his wrist. 

“Okay. I’ll let you be alone with her.”

He nodded in clear thanks, then turned away so she couldn’t see his tears. She felt her heart break with every step he took away from her. What had made that kid so strong? So afraid to show his true feelings?

Her gaze dropped back down, and she found herself staring straight at her father’s grave. Without even planning it, she began to speak.

“… Father, I…”

This was absurd. Her father was not here. Her father could not hear her talking. And yet, once she started speaking she couldn’t stop.

“I don’t know what to do.”

She heard her voice break. She felt the painful lump in her throat, but she talked around it. 

“Aunt Lissa’s gone now, and I know that means she’s with you and mom and Uncle and… and all that’s good, but I… I can’t handle this. On my own, I mean. I know I should be able to, and I’ve been training my whole life for it, but I just… I don’t know what to do.”

She choked back a painful sob, but it was too late. Her eyes were foggy with tears, and when she blinked she felt them spill onto her cheeks.

“Grima’s getting closer, and they found out that one of the gemstones is broken. My friends are hurt, and I can’t heal them. More and more people come to the castle every day, looking for food and water and shelter, and I have nothing to give them. I barely have anything for myself. I’m not ready to make these decisions. I’m trying hard to think what you would do, and, mother, you always told me stories about the hero-king Marth, and I’m trying to be a good and noble leader like him, but I just don’t think I… I don’t think I’m strong enough. Mother, father… I’m sorry.”

She was breathing heavily at this point, tears flowing freely. She felt her knees give out, and was just about to succumb and sink to the ground when she heard a noise behind her.

With a startled gasp, heart racing, she immediately unsheathed falchion, whirling around towards the sound.

*********

It was very much unlike Laurent to make judgements on the state of his friends’ mourning processes, but he’d always thought Lucina to be particularly unsatisfactory at showing her emotions in a productive way.

He raised his hands, brain registering sharp shock as he met the tip of falchion’s blade. He only had an approximate half second of staring into Lucina’s irate and tear-stained face before she registered him as friend, rather than foe.

“Oh gods Laurent, I am so sorry,” she gasped, sheathing falchion in a composed and practiced manner.

“Erm… my apologies, Lucina. I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I noticed some stragglers trying to locate our supplies and was wondering if I might be permitted to bring them back to the castle in your stead.”

Lucina blinked a few times, clearly trying to make sense of his words in her weakened state of mind.

“Oh, the supplies. Yes, of course. Do what you will with them. I’m sorry we don’t have more for you this week.”

Her voice was rough, still battling with the negative emotions she was now trying to hide in her expression. 

There was nothing for it. He’d have to try to reassure her somehow. Admittedly, he had been working on a new hypothesis of late. There was no basis for it yet, but any spark of an idea would undoubtedly ease her spirits.

“Lucina, I’ve been developing a new hypothesis since I learned of the fate of the gemstones. I firmly believe that there is still hope, and we should not give in to despair just yet.”

She actually smiled at that. He was unsure as to what caused it, but it was a welcome sight to be sure.

“We learned about the gemstone not two days ago, and yet you’ve already begun a new theory. Thank you, Laurent.”

Laurent smiled back, glad he could cheer her up despite her misuse of theory (a widely-believed yet impossible to prove fact) over hypothesis (his current predicament, in which there was no clear evidence and he was grasping at straws in hopes of getting somewhere).

“Yes, well, I’ve simply been reflecting on the fact that up until this point, I’ve been focussing purely on science and reason in my studies. However, there are many other facets of knowledge.”

Lucina’s face was sternly set now, hanging on his every word.

“History, for example, is a very strong learning opportunity for modern societies. I know that you yourself have always been rather interested in the Marth legend, and from there I have stemmed my latest research.”

Lucina pressed her lips into a slight frown.

“You’ve been in the library. Reading the same legends that my parents used to read to me.”

Laurent continued quickly.

“Yes, but I do believe that the legends have ground in facts. From Marth, I began research on Tiki, daughter of Naga. Her trail can be traced to many ancient locations, but manaketes are strongly believed to be completely immortal. If she can be located today, I firmly believe that she will be able to help us communicate with Naga herself. I mean, if Grima is real, why can’t Naga be also?”

Laurent folded his arms, evaluating Lucina’s response to this. Her face remained thoughtful.

“You wish to call forth the divine dragon? You think that she could help us do battle with Grima?”

“That is my current lead, anyway,” said Laurent, uncertainly now. “If you believe it to be false, I will justly re-evaluate my options.”

Lucina’s gaze fell to the ground, brow furrowed in thought.

“No. No, I trust you to choose the right path of study,” she said, meeting his gaze.

Laurent took a deep breath, giving her a single nod.

“Besides,” she said. “I’ve always felt particularly close to the Marth legends. If they can truly help us, that’s fantastic news.”

Laurent smiled at her, nervously adjusting his glasses and hat.

“You can count on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting ;w;. I hope this chapter was in-character enough for everybody. I find that Kjelle is the hardest for me to write, and keeping Lucina consistent is also a bit of a struggle, but I just love these kids and I really love to characterize them so wwwoow there you go. Anyway, I’m done here. The next chapter has a bit of action in it hopefully!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story of the fe:a kids up until they leave for the past. Lucina and male Morgan are siblings for the purposes of this fic, but other than that bit of chrom/robin I try not to mention any other pairings specifically. I hope you enjoy angst because hERE IT COMES.


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